VARECo 2018

[1] Büttner, Sebastian; Besginow, Andreas; Prilla, Michael; Röcker, Carsten, Mobile Projection-based Augmented Reality in Work Environments – an Exploratory Approach

Projection-based Augmented Reality (AR) might change the interactions with digital systems in future work environments. A lot of stationary projection-based AR assistive systems have been presented that might support future work processes. However, not much research has been done beyond stationary settings. With moving towards mobile settings, fast and robust object recognition algorithms are required that allow real-time tracking of physical objects as targets for the projected digital overlay. With this work, we present a portable projection-based AR platform that recognizes objects in real time and overlays physical objects with in-situ projections of digital content. We consider our system as a precursor to a future mobile projection-based assistive system. By presenting the system, we want to start a discussion in the HCI community about the potential of mobile projection-based AR in future work environments.

[2] Bräuer, Paula; Mazarakis, Athanasios, AR in order-picking – experimental evidence with Microsoft HoloLens

An experimental user study with 66 subjects was conducted for an augmented reality (AR) order-picking task, including gamification to motivate participants. Subjects went through a test course and were assisted in order-picking by Microsoft HoloLens. The objective of the experiment with random assignment (including two experimental and one control group) was to identify problems in the development of the AR software as well as to identify general problems with the use of AR glasses in warehouse processes. For the evaluation different parameters were recorded via the HoloLens, as well as surveys were carried out. The effect of handling the application in different age groups and genders was examined. In addition, the influence of the subject's technical affinity on the handling of the AR application was considered. A qualitative survey showed that subjects found the augmented reality application intuitive and satisfying. However, limitations in usability were also criticized, such as the weight of the glasses and the limited field of view. With this article we want to highlight experimental and technical challenges for the use of Microsoft HoloLens in real working conditions. We were able to show that the use of Microsoft HoloLens has great potential, but it is rather unrealistic to use the glasses productively in order-picking at the current state of development.

[3] Kluge, Annette; Borisov, Nikolaj; Schüffler, Arnulf; Weyers, Benjamin, Augmented Reality to Support Temporal Coordination of Spatial Dispersed Production Teams

This work presents a prototypic system that uses augmented reality technology to support temporal coordination of spatial dispersed production team members. This system is used to investigate the potential benefit of augmented reality for temporal coordination. We will present a study design as well as various research questions to be considered in future work.

[4] Janßen, Marc; Prilla, Michael, Integration of Augmented Reality into Professional Care Processes

In this paper we present work done in a project that uses AR technology in intensive care. Our work shows how an advanced technology like AR can be established into professional care by pointing at aspects of our work that contributed to the identification of meaningful use cases and the acceptance of the technology among care staff. We also show what kind of challenges the introduction of AR in a domain like intensive home care causes and how we dealt with them. The aim of the paper is to peal out factors that may help in similar endeavours and lead to interesting discussions at the workshop.

An experimental user study with 66 subjects was conducted for an augmented reality (AR) order-picking task, including gamification to motivate participants. Subjects went through a test course and were assisted in order-picking by Microsoft HoloLens. The objective of the experiment with random assignment (including two experimental and one control group) was to identify problems in the development of the AR software as well as to identify general problems with the use of AR glasses in warehouse processes. For the evaluation different parameters were recorded via the HoloLens, as well as surveys were carried out. The effect of handling the application in different age groups and genders was examined. In addition, the influence of the subject's technical affinity on the handling of the AR application was considered. A qualitative survey showed that subjects found the augmented reality application intuitive and satisfying. However, limitations in usability were also criticized, such as the weight of the glasses and the limited field of view. With this article we want to highlight experimental and technical challenges for the use of Microsoft HoloLens in real working conditions. We were able to show that the use of Microsoft HoloLens has great potential, but it is rather unrealistic to use the glasses productively in order-picking at the current state of development.

[6] Langel, Florian; Law, Yuen C.; Wehrt, Wilken; Weyers, Benjamin, A Virtual Reality Framework to Validate Persuasive Interactive Systems to Change Work Habits

Virtual reality technology enables the immersion of a human user into a virtual environment. With virtual environments, reproducible situations such as office work can be created in which a human behaves and acts in response. Because of the reproducibility and the accompanied measurement tools offered by virtual reality technology, virtual reality can be used for empirical research in organizational psychology. In this paper, we present a system architecture for creating a virtual environment that allows to empirically investigate a persuasive interactive system that addresses the change of work habits.

[8] Jasche, Florian; Kirchhübel, Jasmin; Ludwig, Thomas; Ogonowski, Corinna, BeamLite – Mixed Reality zur Unterstützung von Remote-Meetings

In der heutigen Zeit sind Meetings nicht mehr physisch an einen Ort gebunden. Vor allem in der Wissensarbeit ergänzen Telefonate oder Skype-Konferenzen bereits seit langem klassische Face-to-Face-Meetings. Verschiedene Forschungsdiskurse, vor allem der computerunterstützten Gruppenarbeit, untersuchen bereits seit nun mehr fast drei Jahrzehnten, wie durch den Einsatz von IT verteilte Gruppenarbeit in ihren verschiedensten Ausprägungen unterstützt werden kann. Mit zunehmender Leistungsfähigkeit von Technologien mit Fokus auf Augmented Reality (AR) sowie Virtual Reality (VR) sind neue Möglichkeiten hinzugekommen, die ein hohes Potential zur Unterstützung verteilter Meetings bieten. In diesem Paper stellen wir einen Ansatz vor, der durch die Kombination von AR und VR ein Kommunikationssystem mit verschiedenen Kollaborationsmöglichkeiten zur geeigneten Unterstützung verteilter Meetings umsetzt und durch den Einsatz von Consumer-Hardware auch für die Arbeit von zu Hause geeignet ist. Der Mehrwert des Ansatzes liegt vor allem darin, dass auch solche Szenarien fokussiert werden, bei denen sich zwei oder mehr Personen in demselben Raum befinden sowie ein oder mehrere Personen nicht anwesend sind und entfernt zur selben Zeit kooperieren.

[9] Álvarez Márquez, Jesús Omar; Ziegler, Jürgen, Augmented Reality Based Recommending in the Physical World

Recommender systems have received the attention of the scientific community for a long time now and they have become a daily tool for internet users. Nonetheless, they are not commonly applied to physical settings, where having access to recommendations could be of great benefit, specially when combined with item comparison capabilities. Due to the latest augmented reality technology advances, it is possible to bring these concepts together. An intuitive action like visually comparing two products could be enhanced by 3D cues and suggestions. This paper discusses the possibilities to improve the item exploration and decision-making stages of the recommending process by providing item comparison supported by 3D augmentations, offering a novel contribution to both augmented reality and recommender systems domains.

[10] Ohlei, Alexander; Bouck-Standen, David; Winkler, Thomas; Herczeg, Michael, InfoGrid: An Approach for Curators to Digitally Enrich their Exhibitions

In this contribution, we present our research on applications for curators to digitally enrich their exhibition. One of the applications we developed is the Augmented Reality (AR) app called InfoGrid. The app consists of two components: first, museum professionals can use InfoGrid to augment physical exhibitions with digital content through the web-based content management platform, the ALS-Portal; second, visitors use InfoGrid on their own mobile devices to experience these digital augmentations of exhibits via AR. InfoGrid, as well as the ALS-Portal, interface with our backend system, the Network Environment for Multimedia Objects (NEMO). The NEMO framework provides ALS applications with their application logic, semantic models, and functions as the semantic data storage. Museum professionals can use ALS software to automatically process image or video footage to create 3D objects, which can be aligned and cleaned from artifacts in the ALS-Portal by the help of our web-based 3D object editor. ALS software also contains a web-based video editor, which enables curators to create and edit video files, which can be used in all ALS applications. Through the ALS-Portal, museum professionals can look into usage statistics to improve their exhibitions. We present a field setup of an exhibition of original paintings, sculptures and literature created by Günter Grass, the German Noble Prize winner for literature. The exhibition took place in the “Bremische Bürgerschaft” in the Hanseatic City of Bremen over a period of seven weeks.

[11] Ohlei, Alexander; Bouck-Standen, David; Winkler, Thomas; Herczeg, Michael, InfoGrid: Acceptance and Usability of Augmented Reality for Mobiles in Real Museum Context

In this paper, we present the concept and prototype of the Augmented Reality (AR) app InfoGrid for mobile devices, which enables museum visitors to experience digital media as an overlay for physical exhibits. With InfoGrid, it is possible to view 3D objects, videos, and animations, or listen to audio recordings prepared by museum professionals. InfoGrid interfaces with our web-based framework, the Network Environment for Multimedia Objects (NEMO), which stores and handles all data in a cloudbased semantic database. In this contribution, we present the usability field evaluation of InfoGrid in a nature museum, using the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire and additional observations.

[12] Zielasko, Daniel; Skorzinski, Uta; Kuhlen, Torsten W.; Weyers, Benjamin, Seamless Hand-Based Remote and Close Range Interaction in Immersive Virtual Environments

In this work we describe a hybrid, hand-based interaction metaphor that makes remote and close objects in an HMD-based immersive virtual environment (IVE) seamlessly accessible. To accomplish this, different existing techniques, such as go-go and HOMER, were combined in a way that aims for generality, intuitiveness, uniformity and speed. A technique like this is one prerequisite for a successful integration of IVEs to professional everyday applications, such as data analysis workflows.

[13] Schwede, Carsten; Hermann, Thomas, HoloR: Spatial AR as a prototyping environment for wide FOV AR applications

Current augmented reality (AR) glasses suffer from low field-of-view (FOV). AR content is usually created with this limitation in mind and thus provides primarily small volume experiences. This paper discusses a selection of AR interactions in the context of everyday life that would benefit immensely from an increased FOV. For each proposed experience, we present and discuss a working proof-of-concept implementation that has been created using our spatial AR system to provide the necessary FOV. We provide a video showing the proof-of-concept applications as supplementary material.